Well I purchased a TomTom Go 910 the other day due to my research and really thought it would fit my needs. I came from the Garmin family and still am very happy with my Etrex Vista for hiking…but for driving the 910 was the absolute way for me to go. Not to mention I love Palm products and the way you can tweak them....hmmm...you can do the same here with the TomTom!
I wanted to make sure that I did everything right so that I would not dork anything up with it. I stumbled across the TomTom forums prior to purchase so I had a leg up on the average person when it came to deciphering how to use the 910.
The documentation is lacking in my opinion…the forums are a wealth of knowledge.
I decided to write this to help out others that may happen to stumble across these forums and would like get a clean setup on their TomTom product. I use a 910 but the principles should apply to other TomTom products as far as I know.
First and foremost….YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE A BACKUP!!!!! Trust everyone here on the forums. DO THIS OR BEWARE! You could inadvertently do something (as I did) and end up having to restore your TT product. If you don’t have the backup you will be hurting.
Here are the step-by-steps:
1. Unpack your TT and make sure everything came with the device.
2. Make sure your antivirus software is up and running! (Some of the newer TomTom disks have been shipping with something that shows up as a couple of Trojans….I called TT support and they stated it was fine to quarantine and delete these files…you may or may not encounter this).
3. You should install your TomTom HOME software from the included disk…if it is out of date, the computer (provided you are internet connected) will let you download the latest version of HOME….DO THIS.
4. Turn on your 910. If it needs some juice…put it on the dock and give it some power but DO NOT hook it up to the computer yet.
5. When you have a bit of a charge, turn on the 910 and you will either get a chance to select preferences…such as language etc or you can go to the main menu and hit change preferences to access your language, time, etc….
The reason I have you do these steps in this order is because if you do not you may encounter an error when you backup your 910 and it will save you a bunch of time. I did not have the preferences setup and I went straight to the backup process….after 30 min there was an error that stated “preferences.dat” was non existent or something…that clued me into the fact I had to set them first…uh oh….So by doing this first you can get that painfully long backup running and can take care of some other things while this is going on.
6. Turn off your 910 and get ready for the backup process….It will take 40 min or so at first and you cannot disconnect your 910 or interrupt this process. If you do you risk the possibility of corrupting the backup.
How to hook up the 910 to the computer….
Well there are a few methods of accomplishing this but I will let you know what the TomTom Tech support folks told me.
1. Make sure the power cord is connected to the docking cradle and that the cradle is connected to the USB port on your computer.
(NOTE: My cradle and power cord do NOT connect well at all….I called TT Tech Support and they are sending me a new cable…I think it may actually be the cradle but I will cross that path when the new cord comes. In the meantime, I will use my duck tape mod…LOL)
2. Start your HOME program.
3. Place your 910 in the cradle.
4. Start the 910.
5. When it asks if you would like to connect to the computer hit….YES.
It is REALLY important to make sure you disconnect and connect properly to the device or you can screw up your 910…trust me I did this, even with help from the folks here in the forum. You must ALWAYS disconnect via the HOME program. At the bottom left side of HOME you see a little button that says MY DEVICE. If you roll your cursor over this it will tell you if your device is connected or if you can safely disconnect it.
Hopefully your device is now showing in the My Device area. You may have some updates come in but do NOT install anything yet…NOTHING! Your goal here is to get a CLEAN backup of the device prior to messing with anything else!
On the left side you will see an area that says MAKE BACKUP. Hit this button and name the backup whatever you like. I chose INITIAL BACKUP so that I know this was the first one done ever and I will never modify this backup.
The backup essentially copies your TomTom’s information over to your computer’s hard drive. So…be prepared with the necessary disk space on your HDD. If you don’t have enough HOME will let you know but keep in mind you can use up space fast if you put on more than one backup…my initial backup is about 9-11GB.
This will get you a CLEAN BACKUP which is what the goal is. If you have a clean backup you can fix problems that may happen in the future by restoring to your initial settings and data. I have done it and it is invaluable!
I wanted to make sure that I did everything right so that I would not dork anything up with it. I stumbled across the TomTom forums prior to purchase so I had a leg up on the average person when it came to deciphering how to use the 910.
The documentation is lacking in my opinion…the forums are a wealth of knowledge.
I decided to write this to help out others that may happen to stumble across these forums and would like get a clean setup on their TomTom product. I use a 910 but the principles should apply to other TomTom products as far as I know.
First and foremost….YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE A BACKUP!!!!! Trust everyone here on the forums. DO THIS OR BEWARE! You could inadvertently do something (as I did) and end up having to restore your TT product. If you don’t have the backup you will be hurting.
Here are the step-by-steps:
1. Unpack your TT and make sure everything came with the device.
2. Make sure your antivirus software is up and running! (Some of the newer TomTom disks have been shipping with something that shows up as a couple of Trojans….I called TT support and they stated it was fine to quarantine and delete these files…you may or may not encounter this).
3. You should install your TomTom HOME software from the included disk…if it is out of date, the computer (provided you are internet connected) will let you download the latest version of HOME….DO THIS.
4. Turn on your 910. If it needs some juice…put it on the dock and give it some power but DO NOT hook it up to the computer yet.
5. When you have a bit of a charge, turn on the 910 and you will either get a chance to select preferences…such as language etc or you can go to the main menu and hit change preferences to access your language, time, etc….
The reason I have you do these steps in this order is because if you do not you may encounter an error when you backup your 910 and it will save you a bunch of time. I did not have the preferences setup and I went straight to the backup process….after 30 min there was an error that stated “preferences.dat” was non existent or something…that clued me into the fact I had to set them first…uh oh….So by doing this first you can get that painfully long backup running and can take care of some other things while this is going on.
6. Turn off your 910 and get ready for the backup process….It will take 40 min or so at first and you cannot disconnect your 910 or interrupt this process. If you do you risk the possibility of corrupting the backup.
How to hook up the 910 to the computer….
Well there are a few methods of accomplishing this but I will let you know what the TomTom Tech support folks told me.
1. Make sure the power cord is connected to the docking cradle and that the cradle is connected to the USB port on your computer.
(NOTE: My cradle and power cord do NOT connect well at all….I called TT Tech Support and they are sending me a new cable…I think it may actually be the cradle but I will cross that path when the new cord comes. In the meantime, I will use my duck tape mod…LOL)
2. Start your HOME program.
3. Place your 910 in the cradle.
4. Start the 910.
5. When it asks if you would like to connect to the computer hit….YES.
It is REALLY important to make sure you disconnect and connect properly to the device or you can screw up your 910…trust me I did this, even with help from the folks here in the forum. You must ALWAYS disconnect via the HOME program. At the bottom left side of HOME you see a little button that says MY DEVICE. If you roll your cursor over this it will tell you if your device is connected or if you can safely disconnect it.
Hopefully your device is now showing in the My Device area. You may have some updates come in but do NOT install anything yet…NOTHING! Your goal here is to get a CLEAN backup of the device prior to messing with anything else!
On the left side you will see an area that says MAKE BACKUP. Hit this button and name the backup whatever you like. I chose INITIAL BACKUP so that I know this was the first one done ever and I will never modify this backup.
The backup essentially copies your TomTom’s information over to your computer’s hard drive. So…be prepared with the necessary disk space on your HDD. If you don’t have enough HOME will let you know but keep in mind you can use up space fast if you put on more than one backup…my initial backup is about 9-11GB.
This will get you a CLEAN BACKUP which is what the goal is. If you have a clean backup you can fix problems that may happen in the future by restoring to your initial settings and data. I have done it and it is invaluable!
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